Osteria Papazzo: handcrafting a dream, slowly slowly.

One question that I always get asked regarding my work as a Chef and about my cooking is how it all started. Now whilst we are taking  some time to rest and recharge, I find time to gather all my memories and I go backwards to put all the puzzle together of this beautiful journey. Hopefully my English is good enough to share my story with you.

I am a self-taught Chef, the third generation of amazing Cooks and Chefs.

Starting with my grandma Nonna Mena, my aunties Lina, Anna and Enza,

and my other aunties Anna and Rita who had for about 50 years a very famous stall of Fried Neapolitan Pizzas in Quartieri Spagnoli - the spanish neighbourhood.

5 years old me on the left in our kitchen, my grandma on the right. Napoli 1982

My first memories of a stove and kitchen bring me back to when I was very little and had to learn pretty quickly to cook as my mum was often in the hospital for different surgeries , so my brothers and I would warm up meals my father would prepare for us.

Nonna Mena, my mum’s mother, was a character and very popular in her neighbourhood Ponti Rossi in Napoli.

She was from Secondigliano, a very tough and poor area of Napoli and eventually with my Grandpa she would move to Ponti Rossi.

While my grandpa Nonno Carlo was working on Boats she raised her 5 kids by herself.

She was an amazing Cook, but AMAZING,

I would spend hours in her kitchen just watching her in silence, listening to her singing and all the stories she would have to say about the family and other characters of the neighbourhood.

A sketch of my memory of me sitting watching My Nonna Mena’s cooking, Sri Lanka March 2025

She would have a nickname for each person living in the area,

Her body and face had a very strong masculine presence and her face was a real map of her life.

Very hard, tough, and lots of suffering too.

But I believe through the cooking she would find peace, comfort and grounding.

She would prepare hundreds of meals for my mother’s colleagues.

Her pickles were so famous and she was always personally doing her shopping, walking to the markets, then spending days and  hours cooking for her family and acquaintances.

I spent those first 7 years between my age of 8 and 15 years old, just watching her, listening to her and studying her movements, her consistency, her dedication, her passion.

I spent lots of days and years enjoying her super flavoursome food,

That still nowadays I believe it's some of the best I have ever had in my life.

My Nonna Mena in the middle, my mum on the right, All her sisters and brother.

My mum’s sisters were amazing Cooks too, we always shared recipes, one of my Aunties, Late Auntie Enza, used to work in the Agraria University Canteen and she used to make and bake such incredible Neapolitan brioches that were such a comfort to our soul. She is the one who gifted me 20 years ago the beautiful red and white apron I often use. She brought it to me from one of her trips to Germany and I remember I was so in total surprise of this gift, like I thought finally someone knows what I love to do in life. Auntie Lina was great for the sweet zeppole and fried pizzas and auntie Anna is and was great for baking incredible cakes.

Me at home, Newcastle 2024

My uncle Gino instead is and was a great ceramist, my mother was not a cook or a chef but worked as PA for the public Neapolitan bus transport company’s CEO.

When I was 17 I started dating a friend of mine and his mother Rosetta was and still is an amazing Cook, and she was the first one to start teaching me the foundation and basics of simple home cooking, from pasta sauces to baking focaccia and pizza and baking beautiful cakes. Until then I was never allowed by my mother to be in the kitchen at our home, till I pushed so much that  every Monday I would bake pizza with provola and funghi (mushrooms) and my father and rest of family would love so much that I conquered for myself a little time in the kitchen. But it was only when I started living by myself or during some holidays with friends that I could express 100% my love for cooking and for experimenting, and once I started I never stopped. 

Rosetta on the left with a 17 years old me :)

What I loved most when I was little was the gathering at my Nonna Mena’s home, a little home that was never too little to host 30+ of us. It was always so much fun, so much comfort and so much amazing food and laughter. My parents used to host a lot too and what was always surprising me it was that even though the fridge didn’t have much in it, when there were friends around, my parents used to create from nothing, and our terrace and homemade brick barbecue were soon on and out of the blue a beautiful feast was created and fun was around. But sadly, those were the precious few moments of peace and break from the constant fights and dramas and abuse present in our own family. And probably this is why the gathering, the cooking, have a pretty special place in my heart and life and probably cooking was the way for me to heal and ground.

A 2 years old me in the arms of my father on the left, My mother blowing candles with my brother, my little sister               in the back in the arms of my auntie Lina. Napoli December 1978

I remember there was one year, probably I would have been 19. I went with all my friends to Ischia island for New Year’s eve. We went early in the morning to shop for seafood at the port in Napoli to take with us for our trip. We arrived in this house, in the middle of the island, on a very cold day to spend a few days for NEW YEARS EVE, when we realised we bought so much, and we had to clean all the fish and make the dinner and no-one wanted to do it. Oreste, a longtime friend and I offered ourselves to do all the preparation - well actually we didn’t have much option right?

And just like that remembering all the moments and hours I spent watching my Nonna Mena and my aunties I followed those memories and we started prepping and cooking, we cooked for 20 of us and it took so long ahah, we ended up having dinner around midnight, but I still deeply remember that moment, everyone was having a party, enjoying, Oreste and I were so focused on the experience and I believe as I remember I never really stopped cooking since then.

Nonna Mena

Living abroad so many times and for so long always naturally brought me back to the roots of Neapolitan cuisine and even though for myself I always experimented new dishes and mixed up with cultures in my pots, when it came for hosting dinners or supper clubs, I would always refer to my roots, and always everyone would ask me if I had a restaurant or a cafe.

I worked as a FOH and bartender in London for many years and I loved it so much that they were the happiest moments of my life.

Hosting has always been a big part of all the jobs I have done in my life -  hosting, assisting, taking care of someone.

I have never cooked for someone else’s restaurant or cafe. I remember I always thought I could never cook dishes designed or prepared by someone else, as the act of cooking comes so naturally from my heart that it needs to be in tune and connected with my soul.

Many supper clubs I have created, hosted and cooked around the world,

Many family friends I have nourished.

Life though took other paths for me and I really never imagined to consider this big passion of mine as my own job,

Though looking back I see that other people already knew that of me,

like Federico Marchetti, the founder and ex CEO of Yoox, I worked with and for in 2004 back to Italy,

He asked me few times to cook for him after work meetings in the company kitchen and once he asked me to design and prepare a lunch for a meeting he was going to have with another Ceo and I remember I was so excited and started planning from the linen and cutlery and flowers to use for the lunch to then going and design the menu doing the shopping etcetc, it was so successful and even then I would not see what he already knew and could see, and this was about 21 years ago at the same time another friend probable a good witch too :) Biba was always saying to me: A restaurant you need to open, and I remember even at her words I would not catch it,

But still, on the side of my corporate life, with all travels and events I used to organise, my private dinners and supper clubs, were on, living a parallel life.

It was not till arriving in Australia, that something magic happened, a shift, and this Osteria Papazzo seed would start growing…

Marley

Arriving in Australia, joining Christian from Sri Lanka, via India where I was living at the time, I was with a tourist visa then a bridging visa, so I was not allowed to work and because of that I was constantly cooking, creating and inviting Christian’s friends, acquaintances and yoga colleagues at the time, to join our dinners, and always constantly one question I used to receive: do you have a restaurant back in europe? :)

One of the big push to start my dream was the hospitality scenario in Australia, in Byron where we were living at the time. The hospitality culture was pretty absent above all the culture I was coming from, plus the motherhood and a strong need for letting people know how we do hospitality and how you can cook a simple dish full of flavours and be a kind gentle Chef and Boss, all of this pushed hard to the birth of Osteria Papazzo. 

So once I was good with my visa I started doing home cooked food delivery, while helping Christian with his own yoga studio. Then when we moved to Port Macquarie we started with our Pop up Restaurant, our boutique catering business and never stopped since then.

Newcastle has been our new home, for the past two years and we have now a more permanent venue and base at the beautiful Good Brother cafe, 

Osteria Papazzo does not have yet the shape of what I dream for her, but slowly slowly it will.

I am a self-taught chef, cook, artisan, creative curious soul. I am so grateful for my years of watching and listening to my Nonna Mena. I am grateful to all the hundreds of jobs I have had and the ones who took me around the world, the ones who took me around Italy so I could taste and attend many beautiful restaurants, Osterie and Trattorie. I am so grateful to my creative curious soul that allows me to experiment and practice all the time, grateful to the Artisan inside me. Grateful to the several strict diets I undertook in my life for health reasons that opened up so many doors for me and my creativity, knowledge and flavour world.

When someone asks me if I like or prefer any particular famous chef in the world I do not have answers as my favourites are Homecooks.

Me at home, Newcastle 2024

I love homecooks, I love Osterie and little wine bars run and managed completely by small family businesses, I have had the pleasure and fortune to meet a few of them in Milan and I am still friends with them and while working for google and visiting them a lot I was dreaming instead to be in their shoes and I am pretty sure they would have loved to be in mine :)

Hosting, Cooking, Nourishing your soul, palate and your heart, taking care of all your dining experience in a very graceful and flavoursome wholesome way is my mission, I was born for this and I am so grateful I have managed to bring clarity in this past 47 years to know it fully and embracing the journey.

Cooking is always been an act of love for me, 

Cooking healthy food, full of flavours, the flavours I am talking about is: the flavour of love.

Osteria Papazzo is a way of healing and loving the palate and soul of whom I am cooking for.

Through Osteria Papazzo

I am keeping alive traditions that even in Napoli are disappearing. Keeping them alive in a more healthy and different way or bringing them back to life, at the same time I personally stay connected to my roots.

Osteria Papazzo, a little Dream in progress. our little Cucina and dining room!

Thank you for enjoying and sharing my dreams, it means the world and my life to me.

Sri Lanka, March 2025.

 Spaghetti alla puttanesca, Newcastle 2025